The Coven (Coven of Bones, #1)(30)

A private room at Hollow’s Grove so that he could entertain all manner of company if he chose. His pick of witches to mate with.

There was no doubt who he’d set his sights on. I just didn’t know if the Covenant had pushed him to make the match or if the interest was genuine. I supposed it didn’t matter, as Susannah would agree to it, regardless.

I smirked, realizing I wouldn’t need to risk her wrath to rid myself of the boy’s interference.

Willow would do that for me if she suspected that was his intention.

“Why do you teach history to witches?” Willow asked.

I turned to find her standing behind me. Her roommates lingered at the door, watching her cautiously as if she were a ticking bomb. I suspected her behavior was rather odd to them, given that they’d all been raised the same way—a way that was very much different from what I suspected of Willow’s upbringing.

“Who better to teach history than someone who was alive to see it?” I asked, dropping the eraser to the ledge at the base of the chalkboard. I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for the next inevitable question.

“It seems an odd choice, given your obvious bias against the Coven,” she said, her bottom lip twitching ever-so-slightly. I noted the act, realizing she’d done it whenever she considered something that didn’t make sense to her. A twitch when she attempted to solve a riddle.

Whatever Willow’s life had been, one thing was clear. She was not purely driven by whatever her mother had taught her. She was not indoctrinated in the same way the witches of the Coven were from the time they were born.

There was an element of justice within her. A desire to know the truth that couldn’t be denied. I had a feeling whatever her mother had raised her to believe, she’d also given her the gift of thinking for herself.

It was a gift many were not afforded.

“Name me one person who would not have a bias in teaching history,” I said, laughing as her mismatched eyes glimmered with malice. She knew I was right, and she smiled to confirm it, turning her gaze to the window at the side of the room.

“I merely meant that it is interesting that the Covenant allows you to teach—”

“The Covenant does not control me. I do things for the good of Crystal Hollow, because seeing it preserved serves my purpose. Whatever you were told about the hierarchy of power here, consider the bias of the source. Of course, witches would believe they sit at the top and run the show,” I answered, grinning at the way that bottom lip twitched again.

“Maybe you should consider that history is always written by the victor. I find it very hard to believe that Susannah is okay with you sharing history and implying that perhaps you got the better end of the deal that was struck between the devil and Charlotte Hecate,” Willow said, her brow rising in challenge.

“Perhaps, but I’ve given her no reason to take issue with my method of teaching. I stick to the facts and do not embellish. It is better for all of us involved that way. Allows witches like Susannah to continue to think herself the victor, while my kind know how to be patient,” I said, approaching my desk. I leaned my ass against it, reaching down to grasp the edge as Willow’s gaze dropped to my revealed forearms.

That lip twitched, and I suspected this one had nothing to do with how to unravel a mystery and everything to do with how to get what she wanted.

“You don’t seem particularly patient to me,” she said, tipping her head to the side as she approached my desk. None of my other students would have dared to come so close, and her friends at the door exchanged a quick look and scampered off accordingly. She stepped between my spread legs, reaching up and adjusting my tie with a casual ease that shouldn’t have been there.

“A witch’s life is a blip compared to mine. I have watched countless of your kind wither and die. When this generation of witches I’m teaching is dead and gone, I will still be here,” I said, grasping her wrist and slowly pulling her hand away from my tie.

“Not all witches die,” she said with a shrug, not fighting to loosen herself from my grip. I held her carefully, cautiously. I didn’t want to hurt her, even if the idea of seeing her skin covered in bites and bruises from more pleasurable endeavors did fill me with an odd warmth.

“I hardly think we can consider the Covenant alive,” I argued, staring at the way her mouth parted slightly when she smiled. The strong bow of her lips was enticing, drawing my gaze down to the pink of them every time they moved.

“I wasn’t talking about them,” she murmured, biting her lip as if she could feel the heat of my stare.

Disbelief flooded my veins, forcing me to turn my attention back to those strange, mismatched eyes. “What was your mother doing teaching you about Charlotte Hecate?”

The witch who had first struck the bargain with the devil had been granted immortality to oversee her Coven, to rule over them, but she hadn’t wanted the authority. She’d given her leadership role to the Covenant, raising them from the grave as they had been her mentors in life.

A mistake that had cost her greatly when they tore the flesh from her bones and buried it. Somewhere in the gardens, her flesh had been buried—unable to rot because of the immortality that had been granted to her.

Her spirit, and her magic, lived on in the bones that had been passed down to her descendants. It was why the keeper of the bones, the chosen of the Hecate line, guarded them with her life. Why her relatives had done everything in their power to protect her, where other houses were embroiled in competition.